The Dunning–Kruger Effect

From Wikipedia:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes.^[1] The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence. Competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. “Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”

Well, that pretty well sums up your average Ditto Head, Fux Newser, and Teabagger.  However,  I think it would be more accurate to characterize their condition as being a product of devolution rather than evolution. Even a relatively intelligent person can get stoopid from constant exposure to mind numbing and dumbing propaganda. Mere repetition will  lay down new neural pathways that effectively obscure the parts of the brain responsible for rational judgment and self-appraisal.

As I reported in my earlier post Fux News lives Up To Its Name , three different polls have shown that listening to Fux News in particular can be hazardous to your cognitive health. Two more years of this kind of rote re-wiring might even result in the Rethugs nominating Sarah Palin to run against President Obama.

I only hope I live long enough  to see one or more national televised debates between those two.